OK, so maybe there’s no such thing as a free lunch. But a free concert? You betcha.
Actor Gary Sinise (“Forrest Gump,” “CSI NY”) brought his Lt. Dan Band to Denver on Saturday night to headline a concert in Civic Center Park. He shared the Greek Amphitheater stage with local favorite Opie Gone Bad, whose frontman, Jake Shroeder, invited 9News entertainment reporter Kirk Montgomery, no slouch in the vocals department, to reprise a couple of the numbers he had performed with the band at Red Rocks earlier this summer.
And, had it not been for Montgomery, “Saturday Night Alive” alum Victoria Jackson might have been escorted from the premises by the event’s security detail. In town for a Comedy Works gig, Jackson was walking near the park with promoter Mel Gibson when Montgomery spotted her and said she should come on over for the concert. When he told her that her pal Sinise was headlining, she got so excited that she rushed into the pre-concert VIP party to look for him. Her enthusiasm, needless to say, caught security’s attention, but Montgomery quickly vouched for her and all was well.
Sinise, in fact, was more than generous with his time that night. Before performing for an hour, he mixed and mingled with the 200 VIPs that had been invited to enjoy a cool beverage and bite to eat before the show.
Chairman Dean Prina, fresh from a vacation trip to China, joined Civic Center Conservancy executive director Lindy Eichenbaum Lent and board president Chris Frampton in welcoming a group that included the CCC’s founding president, Elaine Asarch, and her husband, Dr. Richard Asarch; Mayor John Hickenlooper with son, Teddy; state Sen. Chris Romer and wife, Laurie; City Council president Jeanne Robb; city council members Peggy Lehmann and Doug Linkhart; City Auditor Dennis Gallagher with Dutchess Scheitler; City Librarian Shirley Amore and husband, John; and Elaine Mariner, executive director of Colorado Council on the Arts.
Frampton’s wife, Yvette Pita Frampton, was there, too, along with such CCC board members as Sunny Brownstein, Ruth Falkenberg, Dennis Humphries, Brian Stein, Marcus Pachner and Susan Kirk, and ex officio board members Bridget Fisher and Mark Bernstein.Kelly Brough, who is stepping down as Hickenlooper’s chief of staff to head the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce, was there, too, along with Children’s Museum president Tom Downey and his wife, Lori Fox, a member of the Denver Commission of Cultural Affairs; lobbyist Maria Garcia Berry; Colorado Business Committee for the Arts head Deborah Jordy and her husband, University of Denver professor Jonathan Adelman; Cydney and Tom Marsico; Patricia Barela Rivera; Arlene and Barry Hirschfeld; J Madden and Linda Poletti; and Jose Mercado, an actor, drama professor (CU-Denver) and founder of the nonprofit Labyrinth Arts Academy that is having a benefit food and tequila tasting Aug. 19 at the historic D&F Clocktower.
Other familiar faces in the crowd: Susan and Howard Noble; Betsy Mordecai; Mickey Ackerman; Michelle and John Hanley; Cindy, Steve and Drennen Schulz; Hanna and Mark Shaner; Caz Matthews and Jeff Rouse; Susan and Steve Hagar; Maureen Brooks, whose Brooks, Intl. booked Sinise and his band; and CBS 4 medical editor Dr. Dave Hnida, who emceed the show.
The Civic Center Conservancy was formed in 2004 to restore and enhance one of Denver’s neglected treasures, the 16-acre Civic Center Park. The transformation will take time, Asarch noted. “We’re moving in baby steps,” she said, “but that’s good because everything is being well thought out. Look at Central Park, Battery Park in New York. Their transformations were spectacular, but they took 10 or 12 years to accomplish.”

Study after study has shown that when it comes to charitable fundraisers, Denver has more per capita than any comparably sized city in the nation. Joanne Davidson has been covering them for The Denver Post since 1985, coming here from her native California where she'd spent the previous seven years as San Francisco bureau chief for U.S. News & World Report magazine.